


Five One-Sided Conversations in St Thomas' HDU

by xpityx



Series: Conversations [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22525561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: “Hey Jon,” he said as he rounded the curtain that led to the last bed.When he’d first come he’d thought they might have put Jon somewhere more private, or in isolation, but the NHS apparently didn’t bother separating the weird nearly-alive from the mundane nearly-alive, so he was simply in at the end of the ward: his heart monitor blank and silent.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: Conversations [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620742
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	Five One-Sided Conversations in St Thomas' HDU

**Author's Note:**

> I have sent this to my beta, but I have all the impulse control of a dead fish so come back in a few days if you prefer to read a version without spelling mistakes.

_5._

The HDU ward in St Thomas’ was spacious and echoing. Plastic, navy curtains were pulled to their furthest extent between beds to give the occupants a little privacy but Martin still made an effort to look only ahead as he walked towards the end of the ward. He did this for all except the second to last bed, which was occupied by a young woman he’d glanced at the first time he’d come to visit. She always had visitors and sometimes, when he ran out of things to tell Jon, he’d sit and listen to her friends and family talk among themselves. This time as he walked past there were two other women there, one bent over her bare foot as she painted the unconscious woman’s toenails. He had half thought to ask the nurses about her but he was afraid of the answer, so instead he sent out an atheist's prayer into the ether: hoping that she would wake up one day to see how well she was loved.

“Hey Jon,” he said as he rounded the curtain that led to the last bed.

When he’d first come he’d thought they might have put Jon somewhere more private, or in isolation, but the NHS apparently didn’t bother separating the weird nearly-alive from the mundane nearly-alive, so he was simply in at the end of the ward: his heart monitor blank and silent. 

Martin settled himself in his usual chair.

“It was Tim’s funeral yesterday,” he began. “It was awful: his poor parents…”

He wiped at his eyes impatiently and tried again.

“It was Tim’s funeral, but it was Sasha’s as well. At least, that’s what I’d decided. I knew Tim wouldn’t have minded and we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to Sasha so...

“Lots of people came. It was up in Muswell Hill, which is really pretty but it took two tubes and a bus to get to, and when I got on the bus I saw a load of people in black suits and dresses and I knew we must have been going to the same place, but I didn’t know what to say to them so I didn’t say anything.

“Afterwards I was mostly concentrating on changing trains at Bank—which I hate doing—and it wasn’t until I got home that I really thought about it all.

“I er, cried for a bit, sat just inside my flat on the floor.

“Then I got up and wrote a poem. I know you don’t much like my poetry, but you’re not really in a position to judge anyone else’s words right now so I’m going to read it to you anyway.”

Martin spent a minute patting himself down for his notebook, then searching for the right page. He tended to write on whatever clear space he could find, so his poems and thoughts were never in chronological order.

_“‘Here’s Tim’, they said and I looked, expectant_

_For his crooked smile_

_And the way he swung his arms when he walked,_

_But there was only the hearse_

_And he was still.”_

Martin started at Jon for a moment, watching his eyes moving ceaselessly behind his closed eyelids. His hair had gotten long, though it was dull and limp. He thought of the woman in the next bed, and the care she was shown by those around her and wondered if the nurses would let him wash Jon’s hair. 

But then again, he wasn’t sure he could stand the intimacy of it.

“I’ve never been up to Muswell Hill before,” he continued, talking about whatever came to him, “and at the top of the escalators at Highgate there’s a big, single pane glass window that’s fogged with age. Beyond it is a mass of vines and weeds, and for a moment I thought I was looking into one of those old Victorian glasshouses. I used to really like them as a kid. Have you ever been to the one at Kew? It’s huge. Also, if you take your work ID, they let employees of the Archive in for free. Apparently there was an incident with a plant that ate some people that we took away, so that’s cool. I mean, the free entry. Not the people-eating plant. Obviously.” 

The visitors in the next bed over must have gone as it was quiet behind him. He closed his eyes and let himself imagine that the steady beep coming from the heart monitor behind the curtain was Jon’s.

_4._

“You know, I find London a little threatening these days. I used to love all the nooks and crannies: you could walk past a seven-storey wall of 1800s architecture, and then glimpse an ivy-covered cottage in a mews just behind it. Now, I just wonder what’s hiding in the spaces between, waiting for a victim to wander in and never return.

“I take the tube more than I used to. I used to like just walking around, but sometimes I feel the dark of the underground is safer than the unknown corners of above.

“I do hate the seats on the tube though. They’re just not meant for, well, anyone bigger than you. I swear I have marks on my thighs from where the armrests have dug in. 

Jon had marks on his skin, of course. His arms were laid out flat on the bedsheets and Martin could see the heaped, brown scars of where the worms had burrowed into him. He remembered reading somewhere that the darker the skin colour, the more likely someone was to develop the thick scars that Jon had so many of now. He remembered Jon talking with Daisy, remarking that now at least people were more likely to ask him where he got his scars than where he was from. 

“I like them in a weird way,” he told Jon’s still form, his hand next to Jon’s arm on the bed, but not touching him. “They remind me how strong you are. Hardy, my mum would say. Would have said.”

As he pulled his arm away his hand briefly brushed up against Jon’s skin. He was icy cold, and Martin found he couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he gathered his things and left. 

He was halfway down the ward before he realised that he’d forgotten to say goodbye. He took a deep, unsteady breath and kept walking. 

_3._

“It’s not that I like people who are mean to me, you know. Tim used to think that, said that maybe I was a secret masochist and that maybe I went to fetish parties in my spare time wearing nothing but a fluffy cock ring and a smile.

“Which doesn’t even make any sense! Why would someone wear a _fluffy_ cock ring?”

There was the sound of a quiet intake of breath from closeby, and Martin turned his head so fast he felt something wrench in his neck. A painfully handsome nurse stood at the bottom of Jon’s bed, looking somewhat amused. 

“Oh! Sorry I—”

He stopped, realising there was nothing he could do to make what he’d said any better and instead settled for turning more and more red under the nurse’s gaze.

“Sorry for interrupting,” he said, his accent giving his English a pleasant cadence. 

“No—no problem. I’ll just—,” Martin made the universal gesture for ‘bury myself in a hole a never speak ever again.’

The nurse, Agapito, as his name tag declared him, winked.

“It’s okay, you can help if you like: I just need to check him for bed sores. His notes say he hasn’t developed any yet, but you never know when he might decide to adhere to the known laws of medical science, so we still check him once a week.”

“Okay,” Martin said, standing and feeling suddenly purposeful. “What do I do?”

_2._

“You would not believe the Central Line today,” Martin said, sitting down in the chair hard enough that it creaked. “No, well, maybe you would. Anyway, there was no Waterloo and City line because… I’m not sure why. I honestly think it only runs every fifth Wednesday of the month. So I hopped on the Central Line and it just. Didn’t move. For _fifteen minutes_. I kept imagining another tube coming down the tunnel and crashing into the one I was on, or maybe even that tube train from that horrible statement where it was on fire.”

Martin shuddered. The ward was cool and he thought about putting his coat back on, but if he wore his jacket inside he could always hear his mother’s voice, telling him he’d feel no benefit when he went back outside. He left it and instead rummaged inside his messager bag for his book.

“Well, where were we? Oh yes, here we are: chapter 19.

“ _They slept four to a burrow, snug and secure. Hazel remained awake for some time, licking Buckthorn’s leg, which was stiff and tender. He was reassured to find no smell of infection, but all that he had ever heard about rats decided him to make sure Buckthorn got a good deal of rest and was kept out of the dirt until the wound was better. “That’s the third one of us to get hurt: still, all in all, things could have been far worse,” he thought, as he fell asleep._

“ _The short June darkness slipped by in a few hours. The light returned early to the high down, but the rabbits did not stir. Well after dawn they were still sleeping, undisturbed in a silence deeper than they had ever known..._ ”

_1._

It had been a while since he’d last been. Peter was keeping him busy and every time he thought about coming he’d remember the warm circle of light and conversation that emanated from the bed next to Jon’s and made some excuse to himself not to. 

He’d arrived late though, and there was only an older man, asleep by the young woman’s bed when he passed. 

He sat next to Jon’s bed, a little disappointed to discover that his usual chair had gone missing. Martin fiddled with his bag for a moment, thinking maybe he’d lost the knack of talking to someone who didn’t answer back. That maybe he’d lost the knack of talking at all. He didn’t have any books on him, just his usual battered notebook. He flipped through it: most of them were things he would never read aloud, especially not to Jon. 

It had been six months though and, spotting the last thing he’d written, he decided maybe it didn’t matter.

“Sorry, more poetry. It’ll be the last one for a while though I promise, because... Well, just because.

“ _I had hoped to hold your hand and be your friend_

_But here, but now_

_That you might one day hear my words again,_

_That must be enough.”_

“Goodbye Jon.”

**Author's Note:**

> Martin is reading _Watership Down_
> 
> Next part is currently called _A Smattering of Actual Conversations, Not Held in St Thomas’ HDU_ to give you an idea of what's coming next :)
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](https://xpityx.tumblr.com/) for fandom and anarchy, [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xpityxfanfic) for writing updates.


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